Shoulder to Lean On
by lilmm
Summary: After Shane shows his true colors, Mercedes turns to the best friend she threw away to help her get through it.


I'd like to start off by saying that after rewatching season two, I started to rather dislike Mercedes simply because she was such a horrible friend to Kurt. This season's rise of extreme bitchiness hasn't endeared her to me any more, but after last night's episode, I started to worry about just what kind of hell the writers are planning to put her through this season.

This story - written on the bus ride home from work by the way and therefore completely unbeta'd - is my attempt to work through some of what I'm afraid might happen on the show. The warning signs are all there: the nausea, the blatant nod to Dream Girls, Shane's rather obvious and troubling moves to isolate a frankly insecure girl from her support network to make her solely dependent on him... I sense the possibility of another pregnancy on the show, but this time I think it will be coupled with extreme emotional and/or physical abuse.

I'm kinda hoping Mercedes just turns out to be a raging bitch.

**I don't own Glee**.

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><p>Mercedes walked slowly into the room with her arms crossed tightly over her stomach. She looked pitiful. The bruised cut on her cheek was finally starting to heal, but the fire that had been in her eyes when she first came to him was completely gone. Kurt recognized the look of utter defeat.<p>

With a small sympathetic smile, Kurt rearranged the plethora of junk food on his bed for the fourth time in as many minutes and motioned for his old friend to sit down.

"I'm not very hungry," she said, wandering over to his shelves to poke at a framed picture of him and Blaine.

"You've got to eat sometime. I can go downstairs and get some healthier options if you'd rather have that."

"Kurt…"

"You haven't eaten anything all weekend."

"Yeah, well, turns out having an abortion is a great way to lose your appetite. I'm not hungry."

Kurt closed his eyes and tried not to cry. They'd both been doing enough of that since Thursday to last them for the rest of the year.

"Mercedes-"

"I'm tired, Kurt, do you mind if I just go to bed?"

"Of course," he said, gathering the food from his bed. He didn't know what else to do.

His phone buzzed on his nightstand and they both looked at it. Kurt hesitated.

"You should check it," Mercedes sighed. "It's probably Blaine. He'll want to know where you've been all weekend."

"He can wait," Kurt said softly. "Right now you're more important."

Mercedes teared up and turned her head away, blinking rapidly. Kurt sighed.

"I'm sorry I haven't been a very good friend since Blaine and I got together. I should have been there for you. I should have noticed what was going on."

"Please," Mercedes scoffed. "The second I got with Shane I turned into a class act bitch. I don't blame anyone for dropping me the way they did."

Kurt raised an eyebrow. "While I don't deny that, it's not what I meant." Mercedes looked at him. "Sam leaving hurt you more than you let on."

Mercedes snorted and picked up a candy bar, playing with the edge of the wrapper.

"I'm serious," Kurt said, shifting so he was sitting on the bed again. "And I get why you would be. Sam was the first guy who made you feel special, who made you feel like maybe you really were as pretty as you've always known you are. He made you feel like you had a chance at what everybody else seems to take for granted. Believe me, I know how amazing and… liberating that is. For a while there, I was starting to think I might never have that. And I know how painful it must have been losing that just weeks after you'd finally begun to feel it, because every time I think of not having Blaine in my life to help me feel that way anymore… it's devastating.

"If I had a time machine to go back and be there for you when you needed a shoulder to cry on I'd use it. I'd make sure you never felt so lonely that you felt you needed to hang out at that stupid restaurant where you met that hulking idiot. I just – I wish I could fix this for you."

The bed shifted as Mercedes sat down, and Kurt smiled wanly as she finally ripped open the candy wrapper and took a bite.

"It wasn't your fault. I'm the one who went along with everything with stars in my eyes. I feel so stupid, Kurt," she said, finally letting her tears fall. "How did I let this happen to me? I was going places, I was gonna be somebody. I was going to prove once and for all that Rachel Berry isn't the only diva in this town and I was gonna do it faster than anybody else."

Kurt smiled and took her hand.

"You're still going to do all those things, Boo. You'll win so many Grammys you'll need a special room to keep them in."

Mercedes pulled away and crossed her arms over her stomach again.

"I don't know that I believe that anymore," she said quietly. "Shane used to tell me that stuff when he was still boosting my ego, and I just – a part of me wants to forget I ever wanted that. That I ever wanted _him_."

Kurt tried to steady himself. He knew now why his dad had gone after Dave Karofsky the way he had last year.

"Boo, you listen to me. You're going to overcome this and you're going to leave this town and you're going to become a star, because a world that doesn't have Mercedes Jones singing her heart out isn't one I want to live in."

He managed to peel both her hands away and grasp them tightly in his own.

"This, right now – this isn't who you are. You're better than this. And I don't care if I have to come over to your house every day for the rest of the year and practice runs with you, you will get through this and you'll be stronger than you ever were before. And ain't no man ever gonna mess with my girl again."

Mercedes finally choked out a laugh and Kurt drew her into his arms.

He'd get his girl back. He had to.

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><p><strong>I know these are serious topics that demand respectful consideration. I hope this will at least get a conversation going.<strong>


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